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Good morning, everyone. Today we begin a new series in the first half of the book of Exodus. Over the next couple of months, we will cover the powerful account of arguably the most significant moment in the Old Testament. Exodus is an epic historic account set in the hot desert sun, beyond the Great Pyramids, involving two mighty nations - Israel and Egypt. It introduces us to Moses (the liberating hero) and Pharaoh (the enslaving villain) through iconic scenes such as the burning bush, the ten plagues and the Red Sea crossing. It is a story of God dramatically rescuing his people from desperate slavery in Egypt. And amid these chapters, a profound revelation emerges – it's not Moses but God who takes the central stage. These chapters define who God is. And so, throughout the rest of the Old Testament, God is celebrated as the one who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Exodus 20.2). The Exodus story also defines who God’s people are. Again, throughout the rest of the Old Testament the people are those whom God brought up out of the land of Egypt. And so, as we dive into Exodus, anticipate a fresh encounter with our great God and a deeper understanding of being his rescued people. Let me pray for us as we begin:

Heavenly Father, as we start reading Exodus, please show us who you really are, the amazing Promise Keeper. And help us see the richness of what it's really like to live under your loving and powerful rule, so that we can trust and worship You. In Jesus' name, Amen.

My title this morning is ‘Oppression’ and our passage is the whole of Exodus 1. Please turn to it in a Bible on or online (it won’t be on the screens this morning). We won’t see any rescuing just yet, but we will see very vividly why a rescue was needed. It’s harrowing – we will see how terrible life is in Egypt for God’s people and the severity of their suffering. Chapter one lays bare the horror of oppression. And in case you were wondering what that has to do with you, then here is the key; this is all about the contrast between life under two kings. One remains nameless, simply the Pharaoh – king of Egypt. Life under him is utter darkness. The other is God whose name is revealed as these chapters progress. And just like a local football match yesterday – there is simply no competition. This King is the Redeemer. He is the Keeper of Promises. A God of mercy, justice, holiness, and glory. He is the King of all Kings He brings freedom. But life under ‘the Pharoah’ is awful. That’s what Exodus 1 is about. And life in Egypt is a picture of where we all start off. The Bible says that life under Pharoah is a picture of what my life was like before Jesus rescued me. It’s a picture of every single person who has ever lived, until we are rescued from sin into God’s Kingdom through Jesus, who is the real and final Rescuer. As it says in Colossians 1.13-14:

He [God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son [Jesus], in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

So let’s dive in, looking first at Exodus 1.1-7. This sets the scene and summarises where the continuing adventure of God's people has got to by the end of the book of Genesis, which comes just before Exodus. Exodus 1.1-5:

These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.

Genesis begins with the creation of the world and the tragic entrance of sin through Adam and Eve's rejection of God's rule. God promises to use Abraham's family to restore the world and remove the curse of sin. How? First, Abraham's family will multiply. Then, they will have their own place to live. Then they would be blessed, and become in turn a blessing to all nations. The rest of Genesis focuses on the growth of Abraham's family. Despite their infertility and old age, Abraham and Sarah have Isaac, who fathers Israel (Jacob), who fathers twelve sons. Joseph, the favoured son, is sold into slavery by his brothers but eventually becomes the Prime Minister in Egypt. Joseph is used by God to bring huge blessing to their land so they prosper even in a famine, which threatened to finish off the family of Abraham. But God arranged things so that Abraham's family could seek refuge and food in Egypt and be reunited and reconciled with Joseph. Exodus 1.6-7:

Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

The sons of Israel were only a small family of seventy people when they went to Egypt, and they all died there. Time passed, but the point of this summary is that God kept his promises and they grew into the great nation that filled the land, just as God had promised. He is the great Promise Keeper. However, not all the promises made to Abraham had yet come to pass. Their descendants were displaced in Egypt, waiting (as Joseph put it at the end of Genesis) for God to bring them to the land he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But that wasn’t the only problem. God’s blessing leads to resentment and oppression by the Egyptians. Exodus 1.8-11:

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.

400 years later, a new Pharaoh in Egypt who does not acknowledge Joseph and his family's positive contribution to the land, failing to acknowledge the God who blessed them. This leads to a fear of the growing number and might of the Israelites. It is unjust – they had done nothing but good for Egypt and his suspicions that they were traitors and a threat to national security was unfounded and pure racism. Their only crime was to prosper. So the work that the Egyptians forced on the Israelites was evil in motive and cruel in nature. These verses emphasize the gruesome reality of the Israelites' daily enslavement and forced labour. Pharaoh's oppressive measures includes setting taskmasters over them, imposing brutal and heavy burdens, and building store cities to stop the Israelites from growing and giving them no time to plot rebellion. The theme of violence and brutality in the Egyptians' oppression is very clear. Look at Exodus 1.13-14:

So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

It’s easy to imagine the taskmasters using cruel force to making sure the suffering, dirty, beaten up, sweat-drenched Hebrew slaves made enough bricks with clay and straw every day. This sets the stage for a conflict between Pharaoh and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's a clash between oppressive leadership and liberating leadership. Who will prevail? Will God's promises be thwarted? Pharaoh represents a leadership that stifles life, restricts growth, enslaves, and kills when threatened. In contrast, the Lord multiplies life, fosters growth, and sets people free. Who will win? Exodus 1.12 gives us a strong hint:

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.

In these dark days, God seems absent. Yet Pharaoh's rebellion against God is unsuccessful, as God's people continue to grow. God is at work and is unstoppable. And even suffering only serves to growth God’s plan. The more they suffered, the more they multiplied. And so it has been throughout history. Pharaoh's actions rebel against God, seeking to destroy his people and hinder the fulfilment of his promises. Satan and his followers also rebel against God, trying to destroy the church and prevent God's promise. However, these attempts are ultimately futile. In fact, the suffering intended to destroy the church is used by God to make it thrive. Pharaoh's cruel command resembles Herod's, aiming to darken the land by killing Hebrew baby boys. Even the Israeli midwives are compelled to be agents of this horrendous plot: instead of helping to bring life, they are forced to cause death. All Hebrew baby boys were to be murdered. Exodus 1.15-16:

Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.”

Once again, God's apparent absence in this story raises questions. Where is God's concern for his suffering people? While God is prominently active in almost every verse of the first chapter of Genesis, his presence in the first chapter of Exodus is merely hinted at. But make no mistake the great Promise Keeper is at work. And his ways are not our ways. Unlike Pharoah, God chooses to act not through a powerful army but through the lowly service and obedience of two humble slave women. In the ancient world, it would have been harder to search down any lower on the cultural pecking order than Shiphrah and Puah. But notice that the two of them are named! And yet Pharaoh, the anonymous oppressor, is not named. God meets the people in their suffering and will rescue them. Exodus 1.17-19:

But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”

The courage of these two vulnerable women defying the Egyptian king was incredible. They could only do it because (Exodus 1.17) they feared God. They were clear about whose side they were on, who they belonged to, and which kind of king they chose to serve. Just like the Hebrew midwives, we too will face a battle between God's way and those who oppose him. Despite the pressure and risks, will we choose to fear God over the modern day equivalent of Pharaoh? As William Gurnall (the puritan) said "We fear men so much because we fear God so little". Shiphrah (beautiful) and Puah (splendid) encourage us to act with courage and trust in God's promises. When faced with the choice of fearing man or fearing God, we need to follow their example. Exodus 1.20-22:

So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

And so the chapter ends with Pharoah’s pilot programme with the two midwives being rolled out as a command to the whole country. Every son is to be killed, and by implication every daughter is to be saved in order to be mistreated as a slave; a move to weaken and destroy. A bleak and dark situation. Yet again, there are hints of God's hand at work favouring those who fear Him over earthly rulers. God is the Keeper of Promises, and we are invited to trust in His faithfulness even when unseen, when hope feels fragile, and in the midst of suffering and sin. God hears the cries of the oppressed and His purposes cannot be thwarted. God has always worked like this. In our own day, the church especially in the west faces many challenges. And across the world the church faces much persecution and opposition. But we can be confident that God’s plans and purposes will prevail. We can be completely confident that God is on the throne, and the church, built by Christ, will prevail against any hostility whether from the sword of violence or the poison of false teaching.

Father, Thank you for this glimpse of the light of your kingship in the midst of darkness. Help us, like Shiphrah and Puah, to we fear you more than anyone or anything else. Help us trust in your promises and stand firm in the face of adversity. Deepen our understanding of who you are as we journey through Exodus. Amen.